Mayor celebrates new law

Sunday

Jun 26, 2011 at 2:00 AM

NEW PALTZ — It started as a flashpoint in America's culture wars. It ended, 7½ years later, with flashbulbs and cheers. It started with police barricades, protestors and national press. It ended with no visible opponents. It started as one man's challenge to the status quo. It ended as state law.

Michael Novinson

NEW PALTZ — It started as a flashpoint in America's culture wars. It ended, 7½ years later, with flashbulbs and cheers.

It started with police barricades, protestors and national press. It ended with no visible opponents.

It started as one man's challenge to the status quo. It ended as state law.

The battle for gay marriage in New York state started on Feb. 27, 2004, on the grassy sloping grounds across from Village Hall, where Mayor Jason West, then 26, married 24 gay couples. It ended, too, in Peace Park, where the people once criticized as radicals were celebrated as visionaries.

West's decision to make New Paltz San Francisco East brought criminal charges, a law firm affiliated with the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, and the tiny Westboro Baptist Church to the village.

Four Republican state senators' decision to support legalizing gay marriage brought roughly 175 people back to where it all began for hugs and speeches.

"There's nobody who can look into their sons and daughters faces and say, 'I'm not going to give you equal rights,'" West told the adoring crowd.

Couples at the rally said legal recognition of their marriage will make routine tasks easier and less expensive.

"For the first time, we're looking forward to filing taxes," said Peri Rainbow, who will be able to file a joint return with Tamela Rainbow-Sloan, her partner of 10 years.

West even made light of the 19 misdemeanor solemnizing marriage without a license charges brought by then-District Attorney Don Williams. (Williams dropped the charges in July 2005; he's now County Court judge.)

"We've only got 30 days to do this illegally," West joked. "We might as well slip another couple (of marriages) in for old time's sake."

West lost his re-election bid in 2007 but was elected mayor again in 2010.

Back when West officiated the gay weddings, Ted Hayes of Stone Ridge and Jerry Hopkins of Woodstock had been with their respective partners for several decades. Now, both of their partners are dead.

"Jack (Waite, Hayes' partner) could never grasp how us being married would have harmed anybody else," said Hayes, who called Saturday "bittersweet."

Back in 2004, thousands of people requested that West officiate their same-sex weddings. This time around, with the legal status more firm, the requests have come in a trickle rather than a flood.

"I can't wait to officiate at a wedding that doesn't involve a parking lot," West said.